Last week, my students entered our classroom and began work on the Do Now assignment that kicks off each class. Yet one student—we'll call him Elijah—walked in late, went straight to the windows and propped one open. I asked Elijah to close the window. After all, the temperature in the classroom was moderate, no other students had asked to open the window, and as a latecomer, Elijah's foremost responsibility was to catch up on the work he had already missed.
An inner-city schoolteacher questions the fortitude of his supposedly toughest students.
Elijah couldn't bear the disappointment of having to close the window, and he spent the rest of the period with his head on his desk, immune to my attempts to engage him. When I later asked him why he had put his head down, Elijah said, "Because you wouldn't let me open the window."
Welcome to my life.
I teach 11th graders, not 3rd graders, yet this immature breakdown confirmed a long-standing belief: There are different kinds of toughness, but too many of my students, especially the males, are deficient in the kind that matters most—the kind that empowers people to overcome adversity.
via good.is
Posted via web from Firesaw
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